It's in your head
by I-like-chickens
Summary: Steve breaks down. Tony helps. The team are there to help pick up the pieces.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N-** Here I am with another offering to the Avengers fandom. Thank you everyone who reviewed Sleep, I really appreciate it. This fic is just as angst ridden. It will be a multi-chap with no pairings (as far as I've written) and I'd love to hear what you have to say about it!

**Disclaimer-** I own nothing related to the Marvel universe.

* * *

He had been told that waking up was a gradual process.

That before making his unsuccessful escape attempt he'd spent days fitfully sleeping, waking momentarily before slipping back into troubled rest, and had spoken with doctors and nurses and had his physical condition explained to him.

He didn't remember any of it.

One second he was dying- the water so cold that it burned and it was filling his lungs and freezing and, oh God, oh God- and the next he was laying on that bed wondering how he had ended up in the past.

The shock the truth had brought left him feeling numb.

Not knowing what else to do he signed himself over to SHIELD and didn't think not to trust them. He listened as they explained what had happened to him, how they had found him and what their organisation stood for without truly absorbing any of the information.

He let them do their experiments. He let them push his body to its limits, to the point that his knees shook and the world trembled, and he let them inject him with drugs he didn't know the name of so they could see the effects. He let them drain his blood until he was pale and his head swam and he was close to passing out.

He let them do whatever they wanted and he never once asked questions.

The people he saw on an everyday basis, the medical staff and the scientists and the agents who led him from room to room and watched his every action, were cold. They didn't speak to him any more than necessary and always called him 'Captain' as if there was nothing more to him than his rank.

He started to believe there wasn't. He thought that at some point during the seventy years he had been asleep he had lost his humanity because he just didn't feel anymore.

He was empty and exhausted.

Every night was spent tossing and turning and screaming and trying to forget the feeling of his body shutting down as the cold drowned him.

He was sure that everyone knew about his nightmares but they never questioned him about them and he didn't know whether he was supposed to be relieved that they were letting him work through this on his own or hurt that none of them seemed to care.

He settled for feeling nothing.

They gave him his own apartment three weeks after waking up along with a stack of papers to read and more money than he had ever held in his life.

Then that was it, apart from checking in at SHIELD once a week, being given even more money and even more paper, he was free to do what he wanted.

He spent his first week of freedom lying in his new bed fighting back tears, barely eating or drinking and definitely not giving into his body's need for movement.

The second week he learnt how to use the refrigerator and the shower and the oven and he ventured out into the new world for the first time on his own.

He went to the grocery store down the street from his apartment building and bought fruit and vegetables and milk in a plastic carton. He was disturbed by how much everything cost and counted up the price of each item he picked up and compared it to the ten dollar bill he had put in his pocket before he had left his apartment. The idea that the value of money had changed hadn't crossed his mind and he had been stupid enough to think that he'd have enough to buy groceries to last him for at least a week.

He left the store with less than he wanted but enough to last for a couple of days.

He used the pots and pans he found in his kitchen cupboards to make the soup he had made his mother before she had died and he was sent to live in the orphanage. It tasted bland and settled heavily in his stomach, making him feel sick, and he didn't finish his portion though he knew his body needed the food. He poured what he didn't eat back into the cooking pot and left it out on the stove, ready to be reheated for his next meal.

He read through the papers that SHIELD gave him over the course of two days and tried to think of the events they were describing as reality instead of fiction.

He read about what was the future for him and history to everyone else and he read the files of his men and learnt about the lives they had led and wished the bold lettering declaring them deceased would provoke him into feeling something.

It didn't.

Not even when he read Peggy's file.

Not even when he read about the life she had lived, the man she had married and the son that she had had.

It didn't feel real.

He didn't feel real.

At the beginning of the third week he joined a gym that was open every hour of the day and began to travel around the city. He walked down streets that had once been his home and now barely recognised. He went into shops and looked at the things they sold and how much they cost and bought nothing more than new underwear and a smart looking shirt.

No one he passed on the street would look at him and the one time he ate out the server took his order and delivered his food without meeting his eye or smiling once.

Steve began to think of himself as a ghost.

He went to the gym at night and exhausted himself enough to sleep for a few hours in the early morning and spent his days re-reading what SHIELD had given him and washing his clothes in the bathtub.

Two months after he had woken Fury asked him to help save the world.

Steve agreed because he knew he didn't really have a choice.

He was the result of Dr Erskine's life work and he didn't want to let him down, never mind that he had been dead for seventy years, he owed it to the man, his first real friend after Bucky, to keep on fighting.

Steve Rogers faded into the background and Captain America stepped forward to take his place because that's who everyone expected and Steve couldn't begrudge them that.

It didn't matter how much he had sacrificed, how much he had lost, the world's need for Captain America was more important.

So he went where Fury ordered and met the men and women he was supposed to work with and acted with a confidence that he didn't really feel.

The Captain let himself be rubbed the wrong way by Stark while Steve watched on, detachedly, too numb to really understand that this man, older by him than at least a decade, maybe even more, was Howard's son.

It was the Captain who struggled to do what was right in the new and confusing time. It was the Captain who fought and led and mourned and bled.

There was no room for Steve Rogers until after it was all over and he had returned to his apartment.

And still, after everything he had done and seen, he didn't feel.

He couldn't.

He didn't sleep that first night. His mind was blank but his body ached to keep on moving and he ended up doing circuits of his block until he felt the world tilt on its axis. He prayed for the first time since waking in the twenty-first century and crawled into bed just as the sun's first rays streamed through the window.

He was woken by the sound of his own screaming less than twenty minutes later.

He didn't sleep much after that.

He filled the days after Loki's attempted invasion with clean-up and meetings with SHIELD and his nights doing mindless exercise and chores.

There was so much talk about a team that didn't exist and relationships that hadn't formed and Steve floated through it, offering opinions when they were asked of him and agreeing to the things that people wanted him to do, and he didn't look to try and make sense of things.

A few weeks after the Loki incident the Avengers were officially declared a team and Captain America was its leader. Steve didn't understand why they chose him, chose Captain America, when he was probably the least suitable person for the job. He wasn't as strong as Thor or the Hulk, wasn't as well trained as Black Widow and Hawkeye or as smart as Tony and Bruce. He didn't know anything about this future technology - this future world - and probably had the least experience of combat of them all, excluding Bruce and Tony. His only real quality was being able to get up and keep on fighting after taking a hit.

He didn't say any of this, he didn't have the energy to, but he didn't take his responsibility lightly, either.

He was always there, usually at least ten minutes early, for team meetings and training and was the only member of the team that turned up to everything but that was only because he had nothing else to do.

The others had work to do or significant others or friends to visit during their down time and Steve couldn't hold them back from any of that when he knew how important all those things were. He knew because at one point he'd had them, too.

He fell into a routine quickly and he drifted from day to day without really grasping the time that was passing.

The Avengers became everything to Captain America but Steve found himself lost in the modern world. The feeling of emptiness had only grown as time had passed and Steve had long given up on emotion. He was hollow, nothing more than a shell, and he almost expected himself to crack.

He didn't because he was Captain America and Captain America wasn't allowed to be weak.

So he smiled and played nice with the others and pretended that nothing was wrong. He started calling Black Widow and Hawkeye by their first names outside of training and arranged extra sparring sessions with them and Thor whenever they had the time or the inclination. He worked on getting a better understanding of Bruce's condition and how it related to his own state and let Bruce draw blood and do tests on him. He sparred with Tony when the older man wanted to test out new stuff for his suit and he never once brought up Howard. They didn't fight as much but that was only because he didn't let himself be dragged into Tony's mind games anymore and not because they were friends.

Steve wasn't friends with any of them. Barring getting shawarma after the battle with Loki he had never done anything that might be considered recreational with one or more of the team. He had thought it was something that just wasn't done in this time until Tony started making it very clear, much to the others', and especially Bruce's, embarrassment, that they all did things without him. Steve wasn't sure what Tony's intentions were but he always smiled and shrugged and made it clear that he was glad that they were getting along so well.

It didn't hurt that he wasn't invited because nothing hurt.

None of them called him by his first name and he was very rarely addressed by his surname but he didn't mind as much anymore. He was becoming increasingly aware that Steve Rogers had no place in this time and it was only appropriate that the name fell out of use, too.

Two weeks after they were declared an official team they had their first mission. It had been simple, 'beneath them' Tony had said, and they had achieved their mission objective without injuries any more severe than a couple of bruises. Fury complimented them in his customary gruff manner on how well they had worked together at the debriefing and then they went their separate ways.

Steve returned to his apartment, bathed and ate and read Peggy's file for the hundredth time before retiring to bed and trying to sleep.

The nightmares were at their worst that night.

Bursts of fire and screaming and faces of team mates new and old contorted in agony as they burned, their skin melting and bubbling and dripping from the bone, and Steve woke with bile crawling up his throat.

He barely made it to the toilet before vomiting.

He spent what felt like hours heaving and retching and fighting back sobs. He twisted a hand in his hair and pulled while the other gripped at his thigh hard enough to bruise. He let the pain ground him as he told himself over and over that it wasn't real, that it was just his brain torturing him, but he couldn't bring himself to believe the lie.

He had seen men ripped apart by bombs during the war.

Had seen them turned to ash by HYDRA weapons.

Good men, young men, with wives and sweethearts and parents and children.

He had seen them die in the worst of ways and it haunted him.

He couldn't help but wonder why men with so much to live for had been snatched away in their prime while he had been left to linger and decay.

He hated himself then and for the first time since waking up in the twenty-first century he let himself cry.

He cried for the father he had been too young to remember and the mother he had had to say goodbye to too soon.

He cried for Bucky and the life they had shared together.

He cried for Peggy and the people, the world, he had known and lost.

He cried and cried and cried and felt.

And when he woke the next morning, body stiff from the cold tiles of the bathroom floor, he found he had cracked.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N- **Thanks for all the amazing reviews and to everyone who has read this story and have favourited it or decided to follow it. It means a lot to me. Special thanks to SmokyMACE for your wonderful review and fantastic PM. I will get around to replying soon! Hope you all enjoy this chapter. Updates will be sporadic as I'm back at uni now for my last year but I'll do my best for you!

**Disclaimer- **I own nothing in the Marvel universe.

* * *

He didn't go to training the next day.

He called Clint from the phone in his apartment and explained that something had come up and he wouldn't be able to make it that day.

He spent the rest of the day in bed reading and re-reading Peggy's file and mourned the woman he had left behind and the life he could have had with her.

The day after he spent walking Brooklyn's streets and truly seeing them for the first time.

He went to the apartment building where he had been born and brought up in by his mother until her death when he was twelve and found it almost unrecognisable. The first floor had been converted into cafes and boutiques that sold things he didn't think anyone could ever need.

He didn't go into any of them.

Instead he walked the couple of blocks to the orphanage he had lived in until he was old enough to make his own way in life, the place where he'd met Bucky, only to find it was no longer there. A building site stood in its place.

He went back to his apartment after that and didn't leave until training with the Avengers the next week.

No one questioned his previous absence and he didn't offer any explanations.

He slipped back into the role of Captain America, strong and level and secure, and pretended that everything was okay.

Afterwards, after they had finished and he had showered and changed into fresh clothes, he found Stark waiting for him in the lobby, sunglasses on and suit jacket slung over his shoulder.

"So, I was thinking," Tony said without any preamble, "dinner?"

Steve frowned, "what?"

"Food. You, me and the rest of the gang. Assuming, of course, that socialising outside of training and saving the world is alright with you."

Steve thought of the soup waiting for him on the stove at his apartment, an ever present fixture now, and the small amount of money he had in his wallet, just enough for a subway ticket home, and shook his head, "I can't. I don't think I have enough money for wherever you guys are going."

Tony cocked an eyebrow and lifted his sunglasses so he could properly fix Steve with a disbelieving look, "you're kidding, right?"

Steve shook his head again, "sorry, Tony. Maybe next time?"

"You're precious, Cap. Don't you realise who I am?"

'Howard's son.' His mind immediately supplied. 'Howard's forty year old son.'

Out loud he repeated what Tony had said on the helicarrier when they had first met, "Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist."

"Which means?"

Steve floundered for an appropriate response, his mouth opening and closing several times without any sound passing his lips.

"It wasn't a trick question, Cap. Come on, dinner's on me." He let his sunglasses fall back into place and clapped a hand on Steve's shoulder, an action that Steve tried very hard not to shy away from, and guided him from the building and to a waiting car. "We go to the same restaurant every Thursday. Cute little place, great food. It's Thai, you'll love it."

Steve nodded and climbed into the car after Tony and didn't dare mention he'd never had Thai food before.

He listened intently as Tony rambled on about the upgrades he'd made to the Iron Man suit, though, he really only understood half of what the other man was saying. There were some questions he wanted to ask about the upgrades and the suit in general but he didn't give them voice. He didn't want to annoy Tony when he was being so nice to him.

If this was going to be the only opportunity he got to feel a part of the team, a part of anything, then he wasn't going to screw it up.

It didn't take long to get to their destination. The rest of the team were waiting for them, sitting at a large table that had been set up in the middle of the restaurant and sipping drinks, and Steve sat down in one of the two empty chairs so that Natasha was sat on his left and Tony was on his right at the head of the table.

Steve glanced around the restaurant, "it's empty."

"Of course it is." Tony said, fiddling with the phone he'd pulled from his pocket. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"He hires the place out for us." Natasha told him with the smallest of shrugs. "His way of showing he cares."

"I resent that remark." Tony said without looking up. "I do it so I don't have to be embarrassed by Thor's eating habits."

"Oh." Steve said and he wondered what he'd done to suddenly warrant an invite to what was obviously an Avenger ritual.

He shifted in his seat and nervous fingers fiddled with the edge of the tablecloth.

"What are you drinking, Cap?" Tony asked when a server approached the table.

There was no menu in sight and, not knowing what there was to choose from and how much anything cost, he went with the safest option, "water, please."

"Alright, Captain Fun." Tony said. He took a menu from the server and passed it to Steve without looking at him. To the waiter he said, "I'll have my usual."

Steve flipped the menu open and slowly flicked through the pages, taking the time to read the descriptions under each dish, and his stomach twisted and turned. The food was all so exotic and a lot of the dishes either used ingredients he hadn't heard of before or ones he was familiar with in combinations he didn't know was possible.

He looked around the table and saw his team mates talking and joking with one another before looking back down at the menu of strange food he held in his trembling hands and wondered if it was really him who was the alien and not Thor because Thor, dressed in civilian clothing and grinning madly as he told a tale of his home world in his booming voice, looked truly happy in his surroundings. He looked like he belonged.

Steve had never felt so lost.

A knee knocked into his own and he jumped at the contact. Natasha just smiled, "have you chosen something?"

"No." He answered, looking through the menu again. "What's good?"

"Depends on what you like."

He shrugged, "I don't know."

"You've never eaten Thai food before." It wasn't a question. She cleared her throat and Steve couldn't read the look on her face, though, there was nothing strange about this, "of course. Well, why don't you try one of these?"

She took the menu from him and pointed out a couple of the dishes and he thanked her for her help. He chose from one of her recommendations when the waiter came to take their order and offered Natasha a small smile as he did so.

He let the conversation of his team mates wash over him as they waited for their food but struggled to find something to say. They weren't talking about the Avengers or anything Steve really knew about and he found there was nothing he could really add so instead he smiled in the appropriate places and wished he was anywhere else but here with these people that should have been friends but felt more like than strangers.

He found himself longing for Bucky and Peggy and the people and the world he had known.

He wanted to go back to a time when people liked and respected him as Steve Rogers and not just what the serum had made him into. He wanted to be able to listen to one of Bucky's jokes and be on the receiving end of one of Peggy's beautiful smiles. He wanted the easy camaraderie of the Howling Commandos and the ability to trust those around him without thought. He wanted familiarity and simplicity.

He didn't want to be alone anymore.

He looked at the faces around him, really looked at them, and saw nothing that he recognised. Even Tony, with his resemblance to Howard, was nothing more than a stranger.

But the more he thought about it the more he came to realise that they weren't the strangers he imagined them to be because all of them, even Thor, fit in this time. They were at ease with their surroundings and with each other and it was Steve who was the stranger.

The odd one out.

The person that didn't fit, could never fit.

And it hurt, it hurt, _it hurt._

He was adrift.

He was spinning, the world floating away from him, and he couldn't find anything to hold onto and anchor himself.

Then he was falling.

The ice was rushing up to meet him and it was so cold, he was so _cold_, and he was going to die. He was going to die and he was never going to dance with Peggy. He was never going to see the war won. He was never going to have the chance to find Bucky's body and give him the burial he deserved. He was never… he was never-.

And then he was drowning.

He could feel the water on his skin and filling his lungs and it burned even as it froze.

He could feel his body stiffening, his eyes slipping shut as his heart slowed.

And then, and then…

And then a plate of food was being set in front of him and everything should have been okay because he was alive and was part of a team that helped save the earth but it wasn't okay because he shouldn't have been there.

He should have died seventy years ago when he put Schmidt's plane down in the artic.

He should be dead.

He should be dead.

But he wasn't and he didn't understand why.

Everyone he had ever known and ever loved was dead, why couldn't he be, too?

He had only ever tried to be a good man, one that stood up for what he believed was right, but now he was being punished and he didn't understand why.

He hated the future.

It was all so cold and confusing and he hated it.

Though, he hated himself more because he was alive.

He didn't want to live here anymore.

Everything hurt too much and he was so cold and tired and nothing made sense because one minute he had been dying, had been making the ultimate sacrifice, and the next he was being forced to save a world he didn't know from creatures straight from fiction with people he didn't understand.

Because they were all so cold and distant and nothing like the people he had known and loved and lost.

And when he had tried to reach out and grasp onto the only thing, the only person, who was at all familiar to him it had been a failure. He had only made Tony shut down and grow angry with him without understanding the reason behind it.

And it was all so cold.

Steve was so cold.

But he made himself smile and eat the food in front of him even if it made his stomach turn and twist and bile rise in the back of his throat because he had been invited to eat with the rest of the team and he didn't want to be rude. Captain America wasn't allowed to be rude and Sarah Rogers had brought her son up better than that. He couldn't let anyone down.

So he forced the food down and lied when Natasha asked him how he had liked it once they had finished eating. He ordered a glass of lemonade when everyone else ordered fresh glasses of drinks and pretended that having a fizzy drink, something he hadn't been able to afford often in his old life, wasn't as much as novelty as he felt it was. But it, too, just like everything in the future haunted and disappointed him.

The glass was cold to touch and there were chunks of ice floating at the top.

He barely touched it.

"Come on, Cap." Tony said as he set his freshly drained glass on the table. "I'm giving you a ride home."

"You don't have to." Steve said. "I can find my way back to my apartment from here."

"It's on my way." Tony told him and shrugged his jacket on. To the rest of the group he said, "we're leaving. Catch you guys later."

There were a chorus of farewells and Steve hurried to keep up with Tony, his mind still reeling and the memory of the cold making his body shake, as he quickly excited the restaurant.

"Seriously, Tony, you don't have to."

The older man yanked the door to the car that was waiting for them open and said, "get in, Cap."

Steve slid into the car and Tony followed.

"Do you know where I live?" Steve asked, still fighting to keep up.

"Course I do." Tony replied, easily. "It's on SHIELD's database."

"Okay." Steve said and didn't ask how Tony had gotten access to that information.

The future was better when he didn't ask questions.

He couldn't get hurt if he didn't ask questions.

A brief silence followed in which Tony poured himself a glass of something from the inbuilt fridge and Steve tried not to squirm in his seat.

"You don't talk much."

Steve shrugged, heart pounding in his chest, "I don't have much to say."

"Yeah, you should probably work on that. The whole woe is me thing you have going on stopped being interesting weeks ago." He took a sip of his drink and once again started to press buttons on his phone. He didn't look at Steve as he spoke. "You woke up in the future and what? Life is better now, the war is over and the world's moved on to bigger and better things. You need to get with the times, Cap, and at least try and appear grateful that SHIELD found your frozen ass."

Steve's insides froze and he turned and looked out of the window at the streets that crawled by without really seeing them. Had he really been that obvious? Had they all seen his weakness?

Captain America wasn't allowed to be weak.

His voice was thick as he said, "I'm trying."

"Sorry to break it to you but trying isn't good enough. You're the team leader, you're supposed to be the one that holds us all together but how can you do that when you can't pull your head out of your own ass?"

"I didn't ask for this." Steve told him and he longed to be anywhere but where he was.

"So, what are you saying? You don't want to be the leader? You think you're too good for the Avengers?"

"What? No!" Steve chanced a glance at the other man and found Tony staring at him with calculating eyes and a blank face. He didn't understand. "Why are you saying these things?"

Tony ignored him, "if you're not the leader then what else is there for you to do? You're not the smartest, the strongest or even a master assassin. Do you have anything else you're good at? Or is the ability to take a hit the only thing you have going for you?"

Steve didn't answer him.

His whole body was frozen and he was finding it hard to breathe.

Had Tony worked out what Steve had known for so long? That he was useless, a waste of space?

"Yeah, I thought so. So, great, the Avengers have themselves a human shield. Awesome. Are you going to follow Romanoff and Birdbrain around and jump in front of bullets for them? Because, newsflash: the rest of us don't need you. The Hulk is pretty much indestructible, Thor's a God and my armour is made out of some of the strongest metal in the world."

He had and Steve didn't want to listen anymore. He didn't want to listen and he couldn't breathe and Tony kept going on and on.

And it hurt because the Avengers was the only thing he had in the future, never mind how much he didn't fit, and Tony was saying that he wasn't good enough and it hurt- it hurt!- to have it confirmed to him by someone else. He was so stupid because he should have known, he should have known, and it all suddenly made sense. They had all known and he was so stupid. He didn't fit with the team because he wasn't good enough to be on it, never mind lead it, and it all made sense because they had just been humouring him, hadn't they? They had known he was worthless but had put him on the team to make him feel useful when he probably did nothing more than slow the rest of them down. He wasn't from this time and he could do no good here. It would have been better if they had found a corpse in the ice because then he'd have been worth something. SHIELD would have been able to do all the experiments it wanted and he could have been useful. He should have never have woken up. He should have died.

Just like all his friends.

Bucky.

Peggy.

Like the men shredded by bombs.

He should have died.

"-down, Cap. I shouldn't have-."

But then someone was touching him and he couldn't take it anymore.

It was all too much and he had to escape.

With jerky movements he leaned forwards and wrenched the car door open, barely noticing when he ripped it off its hinges, and lunged head first out of the car.

The world swam and the wind whistled in his ears.

He vaguely heard the dull crack of his forehead hitting the road and the screeching of brakes and squealing of tires but they meant nothing to him.

Instead he staggered to his feet and started to run.

He didn't hear the voice that called for him.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N- **Here's chapter 3! Thank you all for your amazing reviews. Just, wow. Thank you so much. Each one makes me so happy! So, I'm posting this chapter a little earlier than planned but it's my birthday tomorrow so I thought I'd be nice :p I hope you all enjoy!

**Disclaimer-** I own nothingg related to the Marvel universe

* * *

He couldn't breathe and the world was flying passed him and he couldn't breathe.

He was falling and falling and floor was rushing up to meet him and his head was pounding.

He couldn't breathe.

His lungs burned as they were frozen in place by the ice that was killing him and nothing passed his lips but desperate gasps for air that wasn't there.

He was drowning.

The water was choking him and he was sinking and he couldn't fight it.

He wouldn't fight.

Because this was what was meant to happen.

He was supposed to die.

For Peggy and for Bucky and for everyone.

He was supposed to die and he wasn't going to fight it.

He couldn't breathe and he was dying but that was okay because he was meant to die.

He was going to save the world and he was going to do it for those who deserved to live in it. The good people and the ones that fought for what was right. The men and women who were better than him.

Because he was nothing- useless, worthless, _nothing, nothing, nothing_- but a poor kid from Brooklyn whose only qualities came out of a bottle. There was no place for him anymore. It was better for him, for everyone, if he died.

He had to keep Peggy safe.

Had to keep her safe.

Apart from Peggy was dead.

Dead and cold and gone.

She was dead and he hadn't been able to save her and he hated himself because Peggy was dead.

It was all his fault.

He hadn't been able to save her.

And he was so sorry.

So unbelievably sorry but it didn't matter because she was dead.

They were all dead.

And he wasn't dying quick enough.

He was still falling, falling…

And then he hit the ground and the world ended.

Or it should have.

He could hear someone screaming but he knew it wasn't him because his lungs were still starved of oxygen and he had nothing to scream for because the world might not have ended but he had hit the bottom and he was finally dying.

He was happy.

Happier than he could ever remember being.

The darkness was coming for him and he surrendered himself to it.

'I'm coming.' He thought and he imagined his mother's face. She was smiling and didn't look as thin and drawn as she had in the last few years of her life and, oh, Lord, he had missed her, he had missed her so much. 'I'm coming, Ma.'

'Look at my baby.' He heard her say. 'Look at my Steve.'

She held out her hand and he reached out to take it.

"Wake up, Steve." She said but it didn't sound like her anymore. "Come on, buddy, wake up."

And she was fading, withering and weakening before his eyes, and he was losing her again.

"No." He choked out. "No, please."

He could hear the air as it rattled in her chest and taste the blood that welled at the corner of her mouth and she was dying and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

"Wake up." Her lips said, though, the words didn't belong to her. "Wake up."

Then she was gone.

Light came then and it swallowed the darkness and any hope he'd had that this was the end whole.

He had failed.

Hot tears leaked from the corners of his eyes and his whole body quivered and quaked with movements he couldn't control. Warm hands tried to hold him still but they weren't strong enough to contend with his jerking and shuddering body.

Sound drained away until he could hear nothing more than choked grunts and laboured gasps for breath that somehow seemed to be coming from him.

'I'm sorry.' He thought over and over. 'I'm sorry.'

Because he had failed and everyone was dead because he was still alive.

'I'm sorry.'

And he was crying and sobbing because everything hurt and he was so cold, so, so cold, and everyone was dead and it was his fault.

'I'm sorry.'

Captain America had failed.

'I'm sorry.'

Steve Rogers had failed.

'I'm sorry.'

They were all gone.

"I'm sorry."

He hadn't been able to keep them safe.

"I'm sorry."

He didn't notice when thought became word as the seizure slowed and finally stopped.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

There was a familiar face staring down at him with dark, almost black, eyes and a serious expression.

'Howard.' He thought even as his mouth said, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

The face was speaking but he couldn't hear anything.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Then Howard disappeared and was replaced by someone he thought he should know but he just couldn't place.

There was a smudge of blood on the man's face, just above his right eyebrow, and the finger he waved in front of Steve's face was coated in red.

Steve knew he had failed this man, too.

Why else would he be bleeding- why else would he be dying?- if Steve hadn't done something wrong?

"I'm sorry." He heard himself speak this time but couldn't get his mouth to stop. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"I know." The other man said. "I know you are but I need you to follow my finger, can you do that for me?"

He could hear an engine running and people talking as a siren wailed and everything was too bright and it was too much.

"Steve." The man said again. "I need you to concentrate. Come on, try and follow my finger."

Steve tried, he really did, but his eyes wouldn't focus and nausea bubbled in the pit of his stomach when he tried to follow the movement.

"I'm sorry." He said. He stumbled and stuttered over the next word, "c-can't."

"It's okay." The man said and he was frowning. "I'm going to ask you a couple of questions and I want you to try and answer them, okay?"

"Okay." Steve whispered and exhaustion suddenly pulled at him, making his eyes flutter and shut.

"Hey, no sleeping, okay?"

"'Kay." Steve murmured and forced his eyes to open once more.

"There we go. Do you know where you are?"

"No."

"What about the year? Can you tell me what year it is?"

"Future." Steve answered because he was cold and Howard was gone.

"That's right. Do you know who I am?"

Steve's eyes were threatening to shut again and they wouldn't focus on the man's face but still he tried to remember his name.

Nothing would come and sleep fogged his brain, making it impossible to think or remember, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep.

"That's okay, you're doing okay so far." The man told him. "Now tell me, what happened? How did you hurt yourself?"

"Drowned." He mumbled and suddenly he was wide awake and he couldn't catch his breath.

He was cold and it was choking him and killing him and there was no air.

There was no air!

He was drowning and the water was so cold and the ice was swallowing him.

"No!" He shouted because it couldn't be happening again. Not again. Never again.

"Steve, listen to me. You're safe, you're okay. You're in the back of an ambulance on the way to the hospital. You got hit by a car and you've hurt your head but you're safe, okay? I need you to calm down. You're going to hurt yourself."

But Steve wasn't listening because something was holding him down, dragging him down to the bottom of the ocean, and he couldn't breathe.

He had to get free.

He began to struggle, wriggling his body and kicking his feet, as he tried to fight his way to the surface but he was stuck.

He was stuck and he was going to drown.

"Stop the ambulance! I can't- Thor? Tony?"

He swung his arms with all his might and for a split second he was free and he could breathe and he was going to be okay before there was the terrible groaning and shrieking of metal and a roar that made his whole body tremble.

There was a cool blast of night air as the walls of the ambulance seemed to collapse around him and he was free and he could breathe and he wasn't going to be trapped in the ice again.

The feeling of relief didn't last long.

There was another roar and then a huge, green fist struck him on the chest with enough force to send him flying through the air.

His chest immediately exploded with pain and his vision greyed as the street exploded into action with bright lights and the crunching of metal and a familiar thunderous voice and the cracking of concrete.

He could feel consciousness slipping away from him as he sailed through the air, his body limp like a ragdoll, and he fought to move his limbs so he could control his descent but there was nothing he could do. His body refused to listen to his mind's sluggish commands and so he let oblivion claim him to spare himself the pain of landing.

He was already unconscious when metal arms caught him.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N- **Thank you for all your wonderful reviews! I try to reply to as many of them as I can but I don't always have the time. I just want you all to know know grateful I am to you so thank you. Updates to this fic will be slower from now on as I am now back into lectures at uni. I'll try my best, though! Also, this story will all be from Steve's POV but I may do a companion piece from Tony's. Please let me know what you think!

**Disclaimer- **I own nothing related to the Marvel universe.

* * *

He couldn't keep track of the time that passed. There was no light, just a blur of faces and voices and pain that seemed to come in waves, and he didn't try to make sense of the grey cage he was being kept in.

His mind was blissfully empty and for the first time since waking in the future he found he could sleep without being disturbed by nightmares so he slept and slept and ignored the voices that urged him to wake up.

He didn't want to wake up.

Those few moments he did spend awake were full of pain and confusion and he'd decided that he didn't want to hurt anymore. He had already suffered so much and all he wanted to do was sleep.

It had been so long since he had been able to find refuge in sleep.

No one had been able to sleep properly during the war, there was always the fear of enemy attack or air raids or the worry over friends and loved ones, and Steve had found that his men slept better with someone to watch over them at night.

Bucky had been a fitful sleeper and would squirm and kick and steal the blanket they shared when all they could afford was a thin mattress on the floor of the room they rented because Steve's ill health took up so much of their wages.

The orphanage had been crammed full of parentless and unwanted boys who saw Steve as an easy target and took great pleasure in tormenting him and goading him into fights. On the nights he was well enough to return to his bunk in the boy's dormitory, he had had to sleep with one eye open.

Life with his mother had been hard. He had spent so much of his early childhood desperately ill and many nights were lost to fevered delirium where the only constant was his mother's worried face. She had had to work a lot to make up for all the medicine he needed and he had spent more nights than he could count waiting for her to come home because he had been too scared to sleep in the bed that they shared alone. Then she had gotten ill and he had spent his nights nursing her and fearing that if he fell asleep she'd be gone when he woke up.

No, it had been too long and Steve wanted to sleep.

The voices were persistent, though, and dogged every second that he was awake. He found it harder to ignore them as the pain receded and his mind cleared and he mourned the hours of empty bliss.

Natasha was with him the first time he became fully aware.

She was curled into the chair next to his bed with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and a tablet resting on her knees. He watched her slide her fingers across the smooth service as he willed sleep to come and claim him once again.

"On a scale of one to ten, ten being the higher end of the scale, how awake are you feeling?" She asked without looking up.

He blinked and shifted on the bed and offered her a number, "seven?"

She quirked an eyebrow at him and put the tablet down on the bedside cabinet before moving to stand over him, "are you in any pain?"

"A little." He said as his head seemed to erupt in pain at her words, as if it had been reminded and was doing its best to make up for its lapse.

"That's to be expected." She told him and she leaned over and pressed a button over his head. "The doctor will come and give you something to help."

"Thank you." He said and he scrunched his eyes closed to fight off the pain that the faint light from overhead brought, "where are we?"

"The infirmary on the helicarrier." She informed him. "You were badly injured and Stark thought that you'd get better care here than in New York."

"Oh." He said and he was overcome with misery as memory of Tony's words in the car rose fresh in his mind. "Oh."

"Cap?" She asked.

But then the doctor was there and he was distracted by an intense light being shone in his eyes and requests to move various body parts and questions about what he could remember.

The truth was that there was very little after what Tony had said that he could remember and he told the doctor this.

He wondered if there had been another attack on New York, another fight against people who were determined to do evil, and he had been injured. His mind immediately went to the rest of his team and he scanned Natasha for any sign of injury.

He wasn't prepared for what she was about to say.

"From what we can work out and what Stark has told us, you had a breakdown."

His insides seemed to freeze at Natasha's flat words, "what?"

"We're not quite sure what triggered it but it was a massive break from reality. You jumped out of Stark's car, hit your head and then ran through New York for half an hour before we found you." Her voice was softer this time, as if she was trying to calm his mounting distress, but it did nothing to soothe him. "You got hit by a car. The driver had been speeding and-."

"Is he okay?" Steve cut her off, guilt bubbling in the pit of his stomach and his chest began to tighten because he could have hurt someone and he had no memory of it.

"She was fine, a little shaken up but she was okay." Natasha told him. "But we were more worried about you. It was obvious that you had a serious head injury and Bruce thought it was best that you be taken to the nearest hospital instead of the helicarrier but then there was an… incident and Stark brought you here."

"Oh, God." He whispered because he could hear the Hulk's roar and feel the force of his hit.

"When you arrived on the helicarrier you were placed into my care." The doctor told him but Steve was barely listening. "You had a cracked skull and a major brain haemorrhage as well as a crushed rib cage and two punctured lungs. We very nearly lost you and I think if it hadn't been for the serum then we would have. As it is, you're making as good of a recovery as we could have hoped for."

"I did something." He said because Bruce didn't just lose control. "Did I hurt Bruce?"

Natasha suddenly looked apologetic, "it was an oversight on our part. You were out of it when we loaded you into the ambulance and we thought you'd stay that way until the hospital but you didn't. You tried to get free and Bruce was in the way. The other guy stepped in before you could hurt him."

"Good." Steve said and he screwed his hands up in the white sheets of the bed as his head continued to pound, "what's going to happen now?"

"We're going to have to keep you here for a while longer and continue to monitor your condition as well as run more tests to determine if there is anything that we've missed. Head injuries are very complex matters and even with your advanced healing there's going to be some residual effects." The doctor told him.

"Okay."

The doctor pursed his lips and Steve felt suddenly terrified, "there is also going to be a thorough psychological evaluation so we-."

"You think I'm crazy?" He cut him off and his heart thundered in time with his head.

He had seen men snap under the pressures of war and he knew what happened to them.

He had heard the stories about the asylums and the horrible things that happened there and he didn't want that to happen to him.

"Steve." Natasha put a hand on his arm and he flinched away from the contact. "We want you to get better but we can't ignore what happened."

"I-." He snapped his mouth shut and buried his head in his hands. "My head hurts. Can you- can you leave? I want to sleep."

"Of course." The doctor said. "I'm going to put something in your IV, it'll numb the pain for a while and help you sleep. Call one of the nurses if you need anything else."

Steve murmured his thanks and refused to look in Natasha's direction when she lingered by the bed after the doctor had left.

"Do you want me to leave, too?" She asked.

He rolled onto his side and ignored the pull of the wires that were connected to his arm, "please."

There was a long moment of silence in which the pain started to fade and his grip on the sheets loosened.

"We're here if you need us." She said and then she left.

His eyes burned and a sob caught in his throat but he refused to cry.

Because he might need his team but they didn't need him.

They thought he was crazy.

They were going to lock him up and curse the day SHIELD found him in the ice.

He jammed his fist in his mouth and stifled the sounds that threatened to escape.

He wouldn't cry.

He wouldn't.

Crying would only prove them right and he couldn't do that.

Captain America wasn't crazy.

Captain America was good and strong and he didn't cry or let any emotion but the want to do what was right affect him. Everyone knew that, right?

Right?

He hadn't let the pain of the twenty-first century affect him.

Captain America had stayed strong and fought and led and done everything that they had expected of him.

Wasn't that enough?

But then he realised and his heart stopped.

Natasha had called him Steve. Not Cap or Captain but Steve.

_Steve._

And that was where the problem was.

Steve Rogers.

Because Steve hadn't adjusted like Captain America had. He clung to the past and mourned the life and the people he had lost. He was the one who suffered through the nightmares of falling and bombs and ice and death. He was the one…

He was the one that was weak.

He was the one that was crazy.

And they all knew.

They were going to lock him up.

Captain America was no good when Steve Rogers was defect.

Not that Captain America was any good anyway because Tony had already worked that out and the others wouldn't be too far behind.

Captain America had no place in this time.

He had no place on the Avengers and maybe this was the excuse that they had been waiting for.

Maybe they had known that Steve wasn't strong enough.

Maybe they had just been waiting for it all to become too much and for him to crack and now he had they had their excuse.

He was going to be locked away and they were going to wait for him to die and then they were going to cut his body into pieces and discover the secret of the serum and make a million men who were better than him and everyone would be happy because they should have been doing that months ago when they had hoped to have found a corpse but found Steve instead.

And maybe he should let them take him.

Maybe he should sit in a cell and wait to die.

But the quiet and the time that being locked away would leave him with…

The poisonous thoughts that would invade his brain and the nightmares he wouldn't be able to escape from…

They'd be too much.

They had been too much when he'd had the Avengers and the general monotony of everyday life to distract himself with.

They were too much now.

He didn't want to spend the rest of his life fighting and losing against them.

They were too cruel and he was so tired.

He wanted to go home.

The future was cold and full of people he didn't understand.

He didn't want to be cold anymore.

He didn't want to be alone.

He pulled the needles from his arm and peeled the sticky pads from his skin and crept from his room and the eerily quiet infirmary.

The hallway beyond it was empty and the lights had been dimmed and he didn't think anything of it but tried to stick to the shadows and get to his destination as quickly as possible.

He knew what he had to do.

He ignored the way that his body trembled with fatigue and his knees seemed ready to give way with every step. He ignored the pain in his head that had grown to an excruciating level and the dull ache in his lungs that made it hard to breathe.

He ignored it all because he knew it'd be over soon and he'd be allowed to sleep forever.

There'd be no more pain and there'd be no more cold.

Just…

_Home._

And he was so close, so, so close, but the final door was locked and his hands were too clumsy and stiff to pry it open.

Still, he tried.

He tried and he tried until his vision wavered and his knees buckled and he had nothing more to give.

He couldn't hold back his sobs this time.

He had failed.

"I don't know what you're crying about." A voice suddenly said but Steve was too tired and miserable to react. "It's too dark for any good views and we're up too high for you to be able to breathe out there for long anyway."

"Go away." Steve ground out as his breath hitched and the world greyed.

"No, I think I'm going to hang around for this." And suddenly Tony Stark was sliding down the wall to sit on the floor next to him. "Blackmail for when you're back to your normal ass-hat self and need knocking down a peg or two."

"Please." Steve begged because he didn't want anyone to see him like this and definitely not_ him_. Because Tony already knew. He knew that Steve was weak and worthless and he was going to go running back to Fury and the rest of the team and make them see it, too. "Please, I just want to be… alone. Please."

"Yeah… No. I'm not going to do that. Can you imagine the crap I'd get? I'd never hear the end of it especially considering the pure level of evil they unleashed in order to get me to babysit your sorry ass in the first place. Nope. I'm just going to sit here and watch you a cry because I'm an asshole like that."

"Why?" Steve asked because he really didn't understand.

Why was Tony here?

Why was Steve here?

He had died seventy years ago.

"Like I said, I'm an asshole. I'd have thought you'd be an expert on that considering your own status as one."

Steve let himself drift and he finally slumped all the way down onto the cold metal floor. The pain in his head seemed to reach a crescendo when it landed with a dull thud but he ignored it.

It didn't matter anymore.

He had failed and they were going to lock him up and he was never going to be able to go home.

"What no comeback? I feel like I should let you off due to the fact that you had major brain surgery not five days ago but I'm not going to. You're Captain America, you're supposed to bounce back."

And he just missed everyone so much.

Why had he had to leave them all behind?

Or had they left him?

They had been the ones to continue living while he had stopped.

With ice and water and pain he had stopped.

How had anyone ever expected him to continue on living after that?

It wasn't possible.

He had died.

He was dead.

"Are you even listening to me, Spangles?"

Had someone been speaking? He couldn't remember.

He felt sick.

Nausea bubbled and festered in the pit of his stomach and he choked on the bile that rose in his throat.

"What are you doing? You're not going to be sick, are you? Because, I really don't think I'm qualified to handle that kind of thing and you might not have figured this out yet but I'm really not big on the whole bedside manner kind of thing. And, yes, it still counts even though you're not actually in a bed. It's a figure of speech. Hell, if it was literal then- oh, okay. You just go ahead and throw up everywhere. Nice. Really nice."

He let warm hands move him away from the watery vomit he hadn't been able to keep down and he found his head being cushioned in a soft lap and calloused fingers ran patterns on his overly sensitive skull.

He could feel sleep coming for him.

"I doubt you've noticed yet but you've got no hair. They had to shave it off before they operated. It doesn't look bad, though, you can totally rock the skinhead look. Not so sure about the beard. Facial hair is my thing. You might want to shave."

He let the darkness take him.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N- **THANK YOU for all your amazing reviews! I'm so sorry that I haven't replied to any of them, I feel so rude! But, I just haven't had time. My priority has been trying to get this chapter finished. So, thank you, thank you, thank you! You're all amazing! And thank you to everyone who has favourited and followed this story, it's got over 100 follows now! I'm so happy! My next goal is 100 reviews! :D I really hope you enjoy this chapter!

**Disclaimer- **I own nothing related to the Marvel universe.

* * *

Tony was still with him when he next awoke.

He was in his bed in the infirmary again and the wires and needle he had pulled loose when he had made his escape had been replaced. Steve clutched at the sheets desperately and fought back the tears that burned at his eyes.

He couldn't cry.

He wouldn't.

He had already made a fool of himself in front of Tony, he couldn't do it again, but he couldn't hide from the feeling of shame that threatened to crush him.

He had failed.

He had failed and they were going to lock him up because they thought he was crazy.

Maybe he was.

The room was spinning and his head was pounding and he wasn't dead.

He should have been but he wasn't.

He had failed.

"So, Sleeping Beauty finally awakes. You look constipated, does that mean you're in pain? Do I need to call someone?" Tony asked, quirking an eyebrow at him.

Steve shook his head and tightened his grip on the sheets as his head exploded with a fresh wave of pain, "I'm okay."

Tony shrugged, "your call, Cap, but I'd take the drugs if I were you. They've already lowered your dosage and stuff like that is hard to find without a prescription. Believe me, I've tried. Some of my best work has been done while being under the influence of pain medication, it's amazing what it does to the mind. Seriously."

Steve shook his head again and let the pain engulf him.

He needed it.

He deserved it.

He had failed.

He turned away from Tony and brought up a shaking hand to wipe away the tears that leaked from his closed eyes. He didn't want to see the disgust on Tony's face when he saw how pathetic Steve was being.

He wanted to be stronger, to get up and carry on and pretend that everything was okay, that he wasn't empty, that he didn't wish he was dead. He wanted to be what everyone wanted and needed him to be but he couldn't find the strength to be Captain America.

Not anymore.

He was just so tired and everything hurt too much.

He wanted to go back to sleep.

He wanted to sleep and sleep and sleep until there was nothing left.

No memories or pain or responsibility.

He wanted to sleep.

Tony didn't seem to want to let him.

"So, I'm thinking we should talk about what happened." He said. "And I suck at tact so I'm just going to come out with it. Were you planning on jumping yesterday?"

Tony's words were like a punch to the gut and Steve found himself suddenly breathless.

"Were you going to kill yourself, Cap? Is that what you were planning on doing?"

Steve didn't say anything.

He couldn't.

He couldn't breathe, no matter how desperately he tried to gasp for air, because Tony knew.

_He knew_.

And Steve couldn't breathe.

Had he told everyone? Did they all know?

What were they going to do to him?

"Hey." Tony snapped his finger's in front of Steve's face, making him jump and look around in panic at the sudden noise until his gaze settled on the older man's concerned face. "Calm down, okay? Breathe, come on, Cap, you're what? 90, 91? I'd have thought you'd have mastered this by now."

Steve sucked in a rasping breath, "who- who knows?"

"No one." Tony told him and Steve found he could breathe again. "I covered for you this time but it's a one-time only kind of deal."

Steve didn't try to hide his tears anymore. They rolled down his flushed, stubble covered cheeks unchecked and dripped onto his lap, soaking into the sheets pooled there.

"Why?" Steve asked and his voice cracked.

Tony smiled but it lacked any humour, "we're the Avengers, look up the definition of unstable in the dictionary and there'd be a picture of us. You'd be in the minority if you hadn't thought about it at some point."

"You-?"

"A long time ago." Tony didn't let him finish. "Before the Avengers."

"Why?"

"Why did you want to jump?"

Steve hesitated and thought about lying but then his mouth spoke without his brain's permission, "because you were right."

"I'm right 99.9% of the time. What I said in the car falls into that 0.01%."

"What?"

"I was talking out of my ass, Cap. I just wanted to- shit. I don't know what I was trying to do."

"But it was all true." Steve said and suddenly words were tumbling from his mouth, "I shouldn't be leading the Avengers, I shouldn't even be on the team. I don't have any qualities that one of you doesn't have a million times over and I- I just want to go home."

"But you can't."

"I can't." Steve whispered and fresh pain sparked in head and bright lights flashed in front of his eyes.

"This is your life now."

"I can't go home."

"No."

"And everyone's dead."

"I… Yeah, everyone's dead."

The lights turned to blood and it rained down on him as bombs blasted in his ears and guns spat bullets and everyone died.

The world spun and spun and spun and blood and dirt and gore and fire pelted his body.

His limbs trembled and quaked and he wanted to run, to escape, but he was rooted to the spot.

He couldn't move.

He couldn't tear his eyes away from the bodies of his friends as they were ripped apart and he could hear their screams as they died while he stood and watched and lived.

And they were looking at him and he could see the anger and disgust in their eyes.

He had failed them.

He hadn't done enough to save them and he had let them all die.

It was all his fault.

He wasn't enough.

Captain America wasn't enough and they had all died because of him.

He wasn't enough and they all knew it.

And, and…

"Stark's an asshole."

Steve blinked and wondered what the hell had happened.

Tony was gone and Clint was stood in his place at the side of the bed and Steve had no idea when the archer had taken the genius' place.

Had he fallen asleep?

He didn't remember and it scared him.

Was this is? Had he really lost it?

His mind felt foggy and his limbs were heavy and uncoordinated, like he was trying to control a body that didn't belong to him, like the first few weeks after the serum, and he could do nothing more than gaze idly at the face that stared down at him with unreadable eyes.

Clint tilted his head, "are you listening to me?"

Was he? He thought that he should be but he couldn't quite remember why. Something about politeness and a tired face and Captain America but the meaning was lost to him. He was still trying to make sense of the blood and the bombs and Tony's disappearance.

"Cap?"

Steve's eyes were drawn back to Clint's face.

He hadn't even realised they had wandered.

"The drugs haven't worn off yet, have they?" He asked but Steve wasn't sure if he was meant to answer. Clint didn't give him chance to. "It's probably for the best. You're really not helping yourself, you know? You're supposed to be taking things easy and not going off running around the helicarrier and letting Stark wind you up."

Steve didn't understand, "what?"

Clint rolled his eyes and repeated, "Stark's an asshole."

"He… He was here." Steve said, his words uncertain as he struggled to make sense of what had happened.

Had Tony been hurt?

Had the bombs-?

Was he-?

"Yeah, he was. Bastard made a quick exit once the doctors got you sedated, though."

"Sedated?"

"You had another panic attack, Cap. They thought it'd be better to knock you out than risk you hurting yourself again."

Steve nodded and he couldn't make himself look at Clint.

He felt weak and ashamed and just so _exhausted_.

"Look, Cap, I don't know what Stark said to you to set you off, none of us do, but… Just don't do anything stupid, okay? I know everything must suck at the moment but it'll get better, you just need to give it some time."

"How do you know?" Steve asked and he smothered the hope that threatened to ignite in his chest.

How could it get better?

Everyone was dead and it was his fault.

"Because we're going to be better." Clint said simply. "We screwed up before, gave you space when we should've stuck close and played along with Stark's stupid mind games when we should have just told him to grow the hell up. We messed up but we know now and we're not going to do it again."

Steve could barely believe what he was hearing.

He had to be dreaming, he had to be, because what Clint was saying couldn't be true.

Could it?

But if he was dreaming then where was the blood and the fire and the screams and the feeling of falling?

And the ice and the cold…

Why wasn't he dying?

"Cap?" Steve blinked and Clint caught his eye, "you okay?"

"Tired." Steve murmured.

It wasn't a lie.

His eyelids were growing heavy and he could hear the darkness calling for him once again.

"Okay." Clint said and he gave Steve a small smile. "One of us will be here when you wake up. You're not going to be alone anymore, I promise."

Steve nodded and let sleep claim him.

Peggy was waiting for him in his dreams.

She was wearing that red dress and a wide smile that was meant only for him, "you're late."

"And you're dead." He said, taking one of her hands in his own and placing the other on her hip as they began to sway in time to a song that neither of them could hear but both somehow seemed to know.

"And you're not?" She asked, quirking her lips in such a way that told him she already knew the answer.

Peggy always knew the answer.

"No." He replied, letting her lead him through the steps.

"Really?"

"I should be but I'm not."

"You would have died if it was meant to be." She told him. "But you're still alive even if you're not living."

"What do you mean?"

"I think you know what I mean." She said.

They danced in silence for a few minutes and Steve breathed in the familiar scent of Peggy's perfume.

God, he had missed her.

She leaned her head against his shoulder and he felt her breath tickle his neck, "why are you so upset, Steve?"

"You're dead." He told her.

"So?"

"I couldn't save you."

She let out an annoyed sigh, "you really are a fool, aren't you?"

"Peggy?"

She pulled away from him and fixed him with a steely gaze, "you saved us, Steve, we lived because of you. Why can't you accept that?"

"You're dead." He said again.

"I died an old lady in my bed. I had a good life, I was happy, and it was because of you. Why can't you let yourself be happy, too?"

"I miss you." He said and he was suddenly fighting back tears.

"I know." She said, her face softening. She cupped his cheek and pressed a soft kiss to his lips, "I miss you, too, but I can't stand to see you hurt like this."

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do." He told her, pulling her close and burying his face in her hair. "Everything is so strange."

"Talk to them and learn to trust them. They are your team now." She planted a kiss on the side of his neck. "You're not alone."

"I know."

"You're not alone." She said again and she kissed him on the lips once more. "I love you."

"I love you, too." He replied.

She gave him a brilliant smile and then she was gone but he didn't feel sad about it.

He knew she was right.

He let himself drift as a deeper sleep pulled at him and when he awoke minutes, hours, _days_, later, Bruce was curled up in the chair next to his bed, fast asleep.

The smallest of smiles tugged at Steve's lips and he finally let himself hope.

He wasn't alone.


End file.
